


Your Body Was Not Always My Own

by Cinnamon_Girl



Category: Ghost (Sweden Band)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Angst and Humor, Demonic Possession, Denial of Feelings, Gen, M/M, Mostly They're All Idiots, Mutual Pining, RPF, RPF with a supernatural twist, Religious Cults, friendship gone wrong, lot of that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:54:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23398798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinnamon_Girl/pseuds/Cinnamon_Girl
Summary: This starts like any good song : with three friends selling their souls to the Devil.(That they're now involved with a satanic cult and have to share their bodies with rowdy spirits is merely the bridge before the chorus.)Or a retelling of the band's history through snipets, with helps from supernatural forces.!!!!! REAL NAMES AND IDENTITIES USED. !!!!!Will add tags as I go.
Relationships: Aether Ghoul | Omega Ghoul/Fire Ghoul | Alpha Ghoul, Aether Ghoul | Omega Ghoul/Papa Emeritus III, Tobias Forge/Martin Persner
Comments: 14
Kudos: 21





	1. [Intermission A]

**Author's Note:**

> Reminder : this is RPF. Not your gig ? You're free to leave, lockers to your left and exit to your right.
> 
> For those who stay : this was created and written on impulse(s) as a mean to have fun between reality and fiction. I'm not good at writing cool-looking long chapters, so I settled for some slice-of-life type snippets. Enjoy~ !

Memories come differently, from one person to the next.

Tobias remembers the beginning the only way he knows how : with accurate _teen-aged_ comparisons. _Like a horror movie._

Martin remembers the early days with a cold shudder up his spine, from the ribcage to the depths of his skull. _Like an adrenalin rush._

As for Simon, he chose not to remember. In fact, he won't remember anything, _Ever again._


	2. Backstage : Forge.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Possession comes with a test, like a dream.

_“_ _Tobias, telefonen !”_

He heard his mother before anything else, before untangling the ringing of the _phone_ from the ringing in his _ears_.

The room was dark, if it was a room at all. (It did felt like it, almost like the family living room in Linköping. Familiar but not _safe_.) The air invited sleep, or the illusion of it.

But then again, maybe he _was_ asleep, drifting in some strange realm between his life and his dreams, a darkness populated by things he couldn’t see with his eyes but _live_ nonetheless.

So, he heard the phone ring. His dream-self moved like a thought, and he obeyed his mother.

The further he reached, the more he knew : he was 27, he wore a Ramones shirt, and this was the day _Sebastian_ died.

His hand wasn’t really there, but he felt it tremble all the same as it picked the phone up.

_”Hallå…?”_

_\--The Sjukhusvägen hospital, your brother was already dead upon arrival..._

**“Your name is Tobias.”**

(The voice was the same as the one he heard that day, he couldn’t get it out of his memory, but this was not the person he had spoken to at that time, he was sure of it.)

“Y- Yes ?”

**“Tell me about yourself.”**

“Who is it ? Is Seb okay ?”

**“Sebastian.”**

“My brother, he is 11 years older than me, we used to spend a lot of time together before he moved to Stockholm, and then I did, and then he rarely came home, but I still have all his CDs--”

And, just like that, it began. The dance.

**“Music ?”**

_Yes,_ he thought, _radiated_ even. Music, the Devil, the anger for more, the late nights spent writing ugly words. Everything that was a part of him, with his 27 years, his Ramones shirt, and his dead brother.

**“Is this something you want ?”**

“I want to leave, see beyond the road at my window, I want to become. I play guitar, and I don’t like dogs.”

**“Fear.”**

“Not anymore, I’m just not good with dogs. I’m not good with a lot of things. Projects, drums, people.”

**“Friends.”**

“They’ll hate me one day, and that’s alright.”

That much was true, right ? That was how people were. Humans raged, that was how they stayed alive. And when they _do_ , they make _music_.

Songs could be your friends forever.

“I just don’t know what I’ll do then. Nothing I try seems to work.”

There was silence. He wondered how he was going to tell his mother.

He thought he heard her again : _“Without my children, I can’t--”_

“I can’t live without my kids.”

**“Boel.”**

_“Oh...”_

He looked around, a knot in his throat. _Boel..._ He had to tell her too… She could come with him to the hospital, but the twins--

“The moment I saw them, I knew. They made me realize… They make me someone else, someone good, someone I want to be…”

**“Love ?”**

_Yes._ Once more there was this chant, this certainty. His two loves : his family, and music too.

He saw clearly now, he felt warm all over from restrained tears and overwhelming care. A part of him had died from a heart failure with his brother, and yet he didn’t feel broken, nor alone…

Indeed, there was someone in the room with him. Someone who was the person on the phone and yet _wasn't._

“Someone… I want to be.”

His voice was strangled, strained with grief and love and need.

**“Want ?”**

_Yes. Yes. Yes._

“I want to _be.”_

Then, foreign hands enclosed his shoulders.

The phone slipped from his fingers, and he heard his mother before disappearing like a dream :

_”Tobias ?_

_Var är du ?”_

_Where was he now ?_


	3. Act 0.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's common practice among musicians to make a deal with obscure forces. It's just less fun when those forces strike back.

Tobias' eyes opened to blood splatters and spilled alcohol.

Regretful fluids, covering even more regretful actions if one asked the chalk-made symbols covering the floor. Inverted stars and occult scribbles written with trembling, drunken hand--

He was floating. That was the only explanation as to how he could see the ritual circle so clearly, standing still from above... Except he wasn't standing, and the slow turn of his head showed him that his friends weren't either.

Simon's foot was hovering right next to him, he was laid on his back when Tobias remained face down, and _they were both levitating like-- Like..._

 _'Like in The_ _Exorcist,'_ he thought. Sluggishly, memories and references came back to him like morning light filtering through window screens. His entire body was held up in the air by an unseen force and he didn't even have the strength nor the sobriety to be afraid.

_Yet._

(Panic only started manifesting itself when he realized the reason he couldn't locate Martin was because he couldn't see from his left eye.)

They fell down with the sound of tires on gravels growing near, and until they were all dragged out Tobias remained the only one _awake_.

* * *

The jet black car was driving away from the dirty concrete cabin with its empty booze bottles and used pentagrams. They were frozen together, all three of them, on the back seat.

There was a silver-haired lady in front of them. She had the air of an orphanage director who lacked empathy and patience in equal amount. She was also definitely ageless. "Boys, boys, boys..." She tutted. "Do you have any idea of the trouble you're putting _us_ in...?"

 _'No,'_ Tobias wanted to say, rhetorically, while thinking that the woman looked and talked like she had been the stern mother of children that weren't hers. He just wanted to know if they'd take his book.

"We don't know you," Martin pointed out, much more politely than expected from such a large guy cramped in such a narrow space.

She smiled and said : "You will."

Her name sounded like a bad marketing campaign, or an impending doom. _Imperator,_ or something. She said it once and none of them ever forgot it.

* * *

They were many.

Rows and rows of faceless, veiled figures. They all wore cloaks inside the chapel the boys were brought in, with hoods in as many shades of grey as there were seconds in the night, a monochrome sea of reverent shadows.

This was a place of worship, but to Tobias it felt like visiting an old, abandoned house, a _haunted_ one. (Or maybe it was all in his head, and the fear had finally gotten to him.)

(Maybe nothing was haunted except him--)

He was still clutching _his_ book -the one he had used for those incantations one hour, two hours, maybe _forever_ ago, in the cabin-, and they weren't able to get it out out of his grasp even as they forced the masks on their faces.

* * *

(Tobias' first mistake was thinking nothing could happen to them.)

* * *

  
"Hey. You can stop now."

The tap had been opened and closed six times now, but there was no soap in this public bathroom.

"No," Martin whispered as he rubbed his hands into an angry red, "No, _sorry,_ I can't--"

They had been dropped miles away from Linkoping, lost, nauseous and carrying things that weren't theirs in their backpacks.

"You've been doing better." The soothing voice of Tobias sounded like a stranger's. "Come on, you don't have to-..."

"It's _in_ me, Tobbe...! You've heard-- You've _felt_ it too, it's in _all of us_ \--"

He fumbled with the tab once more. Open, wash, close. Open, wash, close.

Twice, before something clicked into place somehow and he found the strength to reign his urge in, before leading himself to rest against the wall.

He batted Tobias' silent offer of comfort away, gently. _Not now_. He needed time.

"Guys ?"

Simon was a few feet away, looking at his own hand, which was surrounded with flames.

"I think my hand's on fire."


	4. [Intermission B]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Guide To Possession.

Some facts :

  
  


\- This is how it works : you fall asleep and what wakes up isn’t you. Every time.

\- This was all part of a grand design made centuries ago by a cursed family, a cursed name. A deal woven in blood and arcane knowledge, something the Church was carrying to this day.

\- They said it was the book, Tobias’ book. They gave them masks to hide their faces and their souls, and then more to corrupt others, as the three of them were now bound to do Hell’s bidding, just like _they_ were.

\- (So they took to the road, they packed and left, they chose the one thing that would never fail them : music.)

\- There are spirits and there are demons. They obey rules only few can understand, and they need bodies to roam among mortals.

\- The Voice says the prayers, the Instruments bring the hymns. Everything they do has power over mortals.

\- Rarely do events happen without reason.

\- Alpha and Omega have been there before, and they will be there after. They’ve seen more, lived more, felt more. Each time they chose their hosts carefully : sometimes they’re lovers, sometimes they’re brothers, sometimes they’re half-way there. That’s all they need.

\- There are things none can go against, like love.

* * *

PS. : This may be Tobias' story, but it is about Simon and Martin. _Always Martin._


	5. Act I.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Opus Eponymous era does not last.

When it happened at first, Martin thought he was dying.

He was standing in the studio, and the next thing he knew he was clutching Simon’s arms, his shoulders, his face. Were those even his hands ? He didn’t remember ever seeing his friend like this, nor him having bright, spark-full eyes--

  
  


His own eyes turned black as ink, then he was Omega.

(The last thought in his head, in that moment, was Tobias’ shouting his name. It rang, mute and deafening, before being replaced entirely by the being in front of him.)

“I got you, _I got you...”_ Alpha said, holding him in return, bringing him _close._

* * *

Emeritus the First was calm.

No one expected a satanic entity to be demure in any way shape or form, but he would always steer the ship of Tobias' body with wisdom and clever insight. There was _something_ about him that commanded more respect and silent attention than a 5'8-something husk ever could on its own, like an old soul. Which was certainly accurate, considering the circumstances.

He was polite, graceful, quiet, and -as the band found out- would limit any sort of extravagance to the stage... But there, he used Tobias’ voice beautifully, and showed a soft form of indulgence for his ghouls, like a busy father of five.

(They had taken in three other victims to wear the masks. Bass, keys and drums. The demons needed flesh and _skills_ to act.)

(Martin felt like puking of sheer guilt for days on end.)

  
  


* * *

Omega bites his tongue, when he's focused on something requiring precision.

That was what he was doing, as he wrote his thirty-seventh post-it note.

"What's that for, brother ?"

"My human," he replied to Alpha, who was straddling the back of a chair. "'m almost done."

"You could've asked Aqua, or the old man."

He scoffed, sticking the note with the others on the wall. "Yeah, sure."

Thirty-seven yellow papers, with just as many _' Hello'_ s written in the ghoul's best wobbly handwriting and red pen, all lined up into a square on the wall.

"I need three more."

"Really ?"

"Yeah. Forty's a good number."

"Why's that ?"

"I don't know," Omega admitted. "But _he_ cares, so..."

He only spoke again once he was done :

"I wanna make the best impression."

* * *

  
  


“Have you eaten ?”

“Yes-- Yeah, they do feed us, you know.”

“I’m not worried about the venues--”

“Sounds like you are.”

“--I’m worried about you.”

Tobias paused.

“...I know. I’m being careful. We’re still--”

“You sound tired.”

“I’m being _careful_ !” He laughed. “ _Got damn_ ! We’re still playing in Sweden !”

“You’re right. It’s just… It’s been a while.”

“I know. I miss you.”

“ _We_ miss you too, but none of that. Go be a rockstar.”

He glanced to the side and saw Simon leaning against the bus door.

“...I will. I love you.”

When he hung up, he found his friend looking at him with those wide eyes of his, the ones he had everytime he would see Tobias talk to his wife.

“No,” the singer sighed. “I didn’t tell her.”

_About the people in our bodies, about the Church. About the book. Not yet._

Simon stared.

“...Shut up,” Tobias said.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re thinking too loud.”

“I don’t _think_ and you know it.”

“Damn fucking right. So don’t start now.”

Silence. And then :

“Don’t tell Martin.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


The letters feel like they were found in an attic. Tobias even has the impulse to blow on them and get rid of the non-existent layer of dust, as these were written the night before, on boring store-bought print paper.

(He always wonder if he had been asleep, between 1 and 4am, but the letters tell him he wasn't. At least not his body.) The First had a delicate handwriting and used a language that was sometimes Latin, sometimes English, sometimes Italian. It never made it easy for his host, but at least he was polite and patient.

You'd think being possessed would be so much worse, that he'd wake up sick every morning and go to bed exhausted every night, well he _was_... But on his own accord, nothing supernatural about it. Hungovers and all-nighters were already part of his life so, in a sense, he had merely been preparing for this.

However, he couldn't help the worried looks he'd get from his friends every time he _came back_.

He felt like a ghost in their eyes, like they'd seen him die several times this week...

Nothing could prepare him for that.

* * *

Surprisingly, the road trips would bring peace.

Hours of blacking out to let spirits and devils rave around were nothing compared to the true, genuine rest they felt in seeing life unfold.

In seeing Alpha stick his whole upper self out the window to raise his arms into the wind, in bickering about who was going to drive next, or in hearing the whole space fill with soft swedish songs.

This was their oasis on the road, a bubble of quiet where nothing, no one, no demonic shifts nor Hell Church could get them.

This is where Tobias started writing.

* * *

(They found out what this strange _something_ was about the First when the bassist walked in on him drinking what could only be blood. The man -petrified and concerned- was merely dismissed with upmost indulgence.)

(This, the poor soul reported quietly to his human bandmates and nothing more was said, despite the fact that they were now aware of the disappearances that took place around them every time they arrived somewhere new.)

(Simon would look at Martin, who knew some things were better left unknown. Martin would say:)

("Don't tell Tobias.")

**Author's Note:**

> Anything sent my way (be it kuddos, comments or spit-soaked picks) will be greatly appreciated !


End file.
